The 5 states with the best and the worst scorecards for health insurance

The Kaiser Family Foundation just published the latest numbers of the state of health insurance. The numbers are from 2010 (it takes a while to collect and process the data).

Overall 16% of Americans are uninsured, a 1.7% increase from 2009. Nationwide the breakdown is as follows:

49% Employer sponsored

5% Individual

16% Medicaid

14% Medicare

1% Other public

16% Uninsured

The States with the lowest number of uninsured are:

Massachusetts 5%

Hawaii, 8%

Minnesota, Vermont, Wisconsin, all at 9%

And the States with the worst record for the number of uninsured? Texas, with a whopping 25% of the population without health insurance. New Mexico, Florida, and Nevada all tie for runner-up at 21%, and Georgia rounds out the top 5 at 20%.

Hawaii and Massachusetts are the best states regarding health insurance for children as only 3% of kids are uninsured (the national average is 10%). And yes, Texas is the worst with 17% of children uninsured.

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3 thoughts on “The 5 states with the best and the worst scorecards for health insurance”

But, but Dr. Gunter, that 25% figure has got to be overinflated because it includes non-Americans! /sarcasm

More seriously, as one policy analyst says: “We have a large low-income population, we have a large Hispanic population, It tends to be true that at every level of income, the Hispanics have a higher rate of uninsurance.” (link: http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18432)

Therefore, you know, it’s okay that states who have to ‘deal with’ a large Hispanic population has high levels of uninsurance.

Just peachy that Georgia made the top in this category. Do you have a link to the Kaiser report? I’d like to send a copy of it to my Georgia Congressman, Paul Broun, MD, and the governor deserves a copy as well.